Readers' Travel Tips

To save you hearing those four dreaded words, "Are we there yet?", here are a few suggestions from your fellow readers that may keep your little ones happy during those long trips.

I Spy

“I Spy” may just be the most popular thing you can play during long travels. There are always plenty of things to spy, whether it be in a plane, or out the car window.

You don’t have to stick to the original “I Spy” either. You can try colour “I Spy” where others guess what you have spotted by its colour, eg “I spy something blue.”

Another one is an “I Spy” which say how many letters are in the word and what it ends with, eg, “I spy a 4 letter word ending with E.”

“Riddley Riddley Ree – there’s something I can see,” is a game where you find objects in a town beginning with the same letter, eg. Find 6 things beginning with S.

Then, there is always the fun activity of who spots an object, animal, place of interest etc, first.

I Spy

“I Spy” may just be the most popular thing you can play during long travels. There are always plenty of things to spy, whether it be in a plane, or out the car window.

Of course, you don’t have to stick to the original“I Spy”, either. You can try colour“I Spy” where others guess what you have spotted by its colour, eg “I spy something BLUE.”

Another one is an “I Spy” which say how many letters are in the word and what it ends with, eg, “I spy a 4 letter word ending with E.” “Riddley Riddley Ree – there’s something I can see,” is a game where you find objects in a town beginning with the same letter, eg. Find 6 things beginning with S.

Then, there is always the fun activity of who spots an object, animal, place of interest etc, first.

Numberplate Games

During long car trips, you are likely to see other vehicles travelling in the same or opposite direction as yourself. You can have fun with the kids by playing numberplate games, which is not only fun, but also stimulating for young minds.

Try making sentences from the letters on other cars’ numberplates and to make it more challenging for the older kids, put give them a time-frame to work in.

Or, try numberplate sums, where you add the last digits on numberplates of cars approaching you and call out the number.

You can also make funny sayings from the number plates you see, eg. FLZ 323 could be “323 Funny Looking Zebras”.

Sing-a-long

When you travel in a car, bring the kids' favourite CDs and cassette tapes so they can sing along to it. You can even have your own Popstars contest where you can choose and eliminate your favourite popstars and the winner can win a small prize.

Singing fractured nursery rhymes and songs is also fun as you can mix up the words and tunes and can guarantee laughs.

You can also bring along multiplication tapes for children 8 years and up. They can learn the “times tables” in a fun way and younger kids will love to sing along, even if they don’t understand the concept.

Word Games

It is a great idea to purchase a magnetic board and some magnetic alphabets and numbers as it’s harder to lose the individual magnets and you can even play a game of hangman.

You can also purchase magnetic poetry, which has different words on magnets and have a story or poetry competition.

Alphabet list is great to play. Each player must find items beginning with every letter of the alphabet and the first to complete their list is the winner.

Car Colour Spotting

Who hasn’t played car colour spotting in their life? Colour spotting is the easiest game to play during long road trips and will keep the kids busy counting.

Allocate colours can have your kids count the number of cars is that colour. Whoever has the most cars counted at the end of the day wins a prize.

Car cricket is also a fun game which will get everyone involved. Score runs by counting the cars, buses, trucks etc that pass you in the opposite direction: Cars = 2 points Cars with trailers or c/vans = 4 points Trucks and buses = 6 points.When you pass any RED vehicle, you are out and the nest person starts to score runs. Try to make a limit, eg 500 points, and whoever gets there first is the winner.

Speed Camera Spotting is also good. Whoever spots the most speed cameras is the winner.

Lists

“Spotto Lists” are a good way to keep the kids occupied during the journey. You can make it as general or as educational as you want.

Before your trip, create a treasure hunt list for the kids which can incorporate traffic road signs, and other things you may find on the way and the first to mark off all their items can win a prize (like a Freddo Frog).

You can use sticky dots to mark things off and if worse comes to worse, your kids will have fun sticking dots on each other.

Journals

Give each child a notebook, which they can use as a journal to fill each day of your trip. They can write stories, draw pictures and even stick things in from their holiday eg, plane boarding passes, entry tickets to sites etc. The journals will make a great piece of memorabilia to look back on.

Stories

If you aren’t the type of person to get car-sick while reading, you can read children’s novels out loud to them. Or, if they are old enough to read (and don’t get sick while reading in the car) you can allocate pages or chapters to them to give your voice a rest.

You can also make up a story where each person adds a sentence or a paragraph. You can help out if the kids get stuck. The results are often bizarre and most of the time, really funny.

Spot The Playground

Tell the kids that each time they spot a playground, you will stop and let them play. After 5 minutes of play, they are usually happy to get back in the car in search of another playground. This is perfect for incorporating toilet breaks. ( Or every 3rd or 4th etc on a long trip!)

Arts and Crafts

Cut a sheet of cardboard into the shape of a three-storey house and get the kids to “decorate” it using old variety store and retail catalogues. Even the older design student will love this.

Another idea is to punch a piece of cardboard with holes and use old shoelaces and pieces of wool to thread through. Kids can create interesting pieces of work.

Pipecleaners can be bent into any shape and you can make a game of who can make the best shape or things. You can also try and copy each other’s handiwork.

Sharing Activities

Kids love sharing their holiday memories, so a great way to spend a car ride is to share memories. You can even share earlier travel memories with them and see if they remember it.

You can also share cloud pictures. Find a picture in the clouds, explain what it is and help the others see it.

Activity Bags

Activity bags are another way of keeping your little ones amused. In backpacks or old pillowcases, put your child’s favourite games, toys, colouring books and crayons. Hand them out when the kids start to get restless. Make sure you also get your child’s input in what you pack, as they know what toys or games they will miss the most.

You can also take a bag full of goodies wrapped up like gifts and hand them out as the child gets bored.

Food

Food is a great pacifier, as most parents will know. Cut up pieces of fruit and use zip lock bags to store them and hand them out to the kids. You can also stock up on special treats or possibly even some lollies, as these make great, inexpensive prizes for any of the game you may play.